So far, the U.S. has uncovered a successful espionage phishing expedition, against top level U.S. Government officials, tracked back to a specific Chinese city. Why aren’t we bombing China, isn’t this a perfect situation to show how our new military policy will treat hacking intrusions like this as acts of war? Unfortunately for us, China denies the attack and, as I pointed out yesterday, it’s extremely difficult to be absolutely sure as to the origins of cyberattacks like this, so we do nothing and our brand new policy looks foolish and radiates national weakness.

/instead of making toothless threats to send missile strikes in response to hack attacks, why don’t we just send the Chinese back a nice Stuxnet worm or take down Baidu with a complimentary DoS attack

Chris Christie leads Jon Corzine 47-41 in PPP’s final poll of the New Jersey Governor’s race, with Chris Daggett at 11%.

Corzine had pulled to within a point of Christie on our poll three weeks ago after trailing by as many as 14 points over the summer, but his momentum has stalled since then and Christie’s built his lead back up to 4 points last week and now 6.

But, of course, if you’re a Republican in New Jersey, you already know that a six point lead against a Democrat candidate might not be safe.

The race for governor in New Jersey is so close in final polls that it may well end up in a recount — the 1981 election did and was decided by less than 1,800 votes. If there is a recount, you can bet disputes about absentee ballots will loom large. Moreover, if serious allegations of fraud emerge, you can also expect less-than-vigorous investigation by the Obama Justice Department — which showed just how seriously it takes such allegations when it walked away from an open-and-shut voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia earlier this year.

Plenty of reasons exist for suspecting absentee fraud may play a significant role in tomorrow’s Garden State contests. Groups associated with Acorn in neighboring Pennsylvania and New York appear to have moved into the state. An independent candidate for mayor in Camden has already leveled charges that voter fraud is occurring in his city. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party in New Jersey is taking advantage of a new loosely written vote-by-mail law to pressure county clerks not to vigorously use signature checks to evaluate the authenticity of absentee ballots, the only verification procedure allowed.

The state has received a flood of 180,000 absentee ballot requests. On some 3,000 forms the signature doesn’t match the one on file with county clerks. Yet citing concerns that voters would be disenfranchised, Democratic Party lawyer Paul Josephson wrote New Jersey’s secretary of state asking her “to instruct County Clerks not to deny applications on the basis of signature comparison alone.” Mr. Josephson maintained that county clerks “may be overworked and are likely not trained in handwriting analysis” and insisted that voters with suspect applications should be allowed to cast provisional ballots. Those ballots, of course, would then provide a pool of votes that would be subject to litigation in any recount, with the occupant of New Jersey’s highest office determined by Florida 2000-style scrutiny of ballot applications.

Fearing a potentially devastating Democratic loss, the highly controversial Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) group and its affiliated organizations are gearing up to tip the scales and re-elect embattled incumbent in the hard-fought New Jersey gubernatorial race, sources tell Newsmax.

“Acorn is heavily involved in Gov. Jon Corzine’s get-out-the-vote operation, but is maintaining a low profile at the insistence of the Corzine campaign,” Matthew Vadum, senior editor of the conservative Capitol Research Center think tank, tells Newsmax. “If Corzine manages to win reelection, he doesn’t want the victory tainted by his close association with Acorn.”

Wall Street Journal columnist and author John Fund wrote Tuesday that “Plenty of reasons exist for suspecting absentee fraud may play a significant role in tomorrow’s Garden State contests.”

In the upstate New York House race that has attracted national attention, Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate now embraced by the GOP, leads Democrat Bill Owens by 41 percent to 36 percent with 6 percent backing Republican Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, who dropped out of the race on Saturday, according to a Siena College poll conducted Nov. 1. Eighteen percent are undecided, The margin of error is 4 points.

The number of undecided voters is now double what it was in Siena’s last poll, when Scozzafava was still in the race.

“Hoffman continues to demonstrate momentum, picking up six points since Scozzafava pulled out,” said Siena’s Steven Greenberg. “It appears, however, that the majority of Scozzafava’s supporters have gone to neither Hoffman nor Owens, but rather into the undecided column.”

The NY-23 special election on Tuesday has the attention of the White House at the highest levels, with White House sources saying that the endorsement of Democrat Bill Owens by “Republican” Dede Scozzafava came only after a call from White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel asking that she throw her support behind the Democrat.

NY 23, are you going to let the Obama White House control your Republican candidates?

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has relayed messages to Israel in the past week expressing anger at obstacles Israel is placing to the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. A leading political source in Jerusalem noted that senior Clinton aides have made it clear that the matter will be central to Clinton’s planned visit to Israel next Tuesday.

Ahead of Clinton’s visit, special U.S. envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell is expected to issue a sharply worded protest on the same matter when he arrives here Thursday.

“Israel is not making enough effort to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza,” senior U.S. officials told Israeli counterparts last week, and reiterated Washington’s view by saying that “the U.S. expects Israel to meet its commitments on this matter.”

UNRWA informed the IDF on Friday it is suspending humanitarian aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip after Hamas stole supplies it had transferred to the Palestinian territory.

The seizure of 200 tons of supplies, included flour and other staples, took place on Thursday night. In response, UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency) officials informed the IDF’s Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration that it was suspending the deliveries until further notice.

So, why is the Obama administration criticizing and pressuring Israel to go against her own self interest and allow aid to pour into Gaza via the U.N. when the U.N. itself admits that it can’t keep the aid out of the hands of Hamas? Good question, bad news for Israel. But wait, there’s more.

The appointment by the Obama administration of Charles “Chas” Freeman as chairman of the National Intelligence Council on Thursday caused a real brouhaha in Washington.

Freeman served as US ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf War and has major expertise regarding China. His appointment brought praise from many but criticism from elements of the pro-Israeli community and pro-Israeli Congressmen.

Pro-Israeli publications are attacking his appointment as something close to betrayal — Why? He’s been called everything from “a Saudi puppet,” “Chas of Arabia” to being “linked to Saudi cash.”

The “link” goes back to 2007, when as president of the Washington-based Middle East Policy Council (MEPC) he accepted a $1 million donation from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal for the council.

Not only is he is being attacked for being pro-Saudi, but also for his calls for a more balanced US foreign policy between Israel and the Arab world.

Back in 2007, Freeman addressed the pro-Israeli Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs, and said: “Israel no longer even pretends to seek peace with the Palestinians; it strives instead to pacify them.”

The primary reason America confronts a terrorism problem today, he continued, is “the brutal oppression of the Palestinians by an Israeli occupation that is about to mark its fortieth anniversary and shows no sign of ending.”

National Security: Imagine one of China’s and Saudi Arabia’s mouthpieces in America writing intelligence reports for the White House. Meet Chas Freeman, who will soon fill all three roles.

National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair has named Freeman to head his council of advisers, an influential post that, regrettably, does not require Senate confirmation.

As National Intelligence Council chairman, Freeman will serve as a key intelligence adviser to President Obama and will prepare his daily briefings and the all-important National Intelligence Estimate on foreign threats.

The job demands an uncompromising objectivity that Freeman can’t possibly deliver, given his conflicts of interest involving two nations potentially hostile to the U.S.

Freeman for years has showed an almost slavish zeal in defending Riyadh and Beijing from well-deserved criticism. This has undermined Israel and Taiwan, both key American allies.

Power made her most problematic statement in 2002, in an interview she gave at Berkeley. The interviewer asked her this question:

Let me give you a thought experiment here, and it is the following: without addressing the Palestine-Israel problem, let’s say you were an advisor to the President of the United States, how would you respond to current events there? Would you advise him to put a structure in place to monitor that situation, at least if one party or another [starts] looking like they might be moving toward genocide?

Power gave an astonishing answer:

What we don’t need is some kind of early warning mechanism there, what we need is a willingness to put something on the line in helping the situation. Putting something on the line might mean alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import; it may more crucially mean sacrificing—or investing, I think, more than sacrificing—billions of dollars, not in servicing Israel’s military, but actually investing in the new state of Palestine, in investing the billions of dollars it would probably take, also, to support what will have to be a mammoth protection force, not of the old Rwanda kind, but a meaningful military presence. Because it seems to me at this stage (and this is true of actual genocides as well, and not just major human rights abuses, which were seen there), you have to go in as if you’re serious, you have to put something on the line.

Unfortunately, imposition of a solution on unwilling parties is dreadful. It’s a terrible thing to do, it’s fundamentally undemocratic. But, sadly, we don’t just have a democracy here either, we have a liberal democracy. There are certain sets of principles that guide our policy, or that are meant to, anyway. It’s essential that some set of principles becomes the benchmark, rather than a deference to [leaders] who are fundamentally politically destined to destroy the lives of their own people. And by that I mean what Tom Friedman has called “Sharafat” [Sharon-Arafat]. I do think in that sense, both political leaders have been dreadfully irresponsible. And, unfortunately, it does require external intervention…. Any intervention is going to come under fierce criticism. But we have to think about lesser evils, especially when the human stakes are becoming ever more pronounced.

Now why would Obama have someone who thinks about invading Israel as one of his closest foreign policy advisors? Good question, bad news for Israel.

/if you’re starting to get the picture that electing Barack Obama as President of the United States is bad news for Israel, you might just be onto something

“As I went through my angst period and struggled with the challenges of living in the real world, the more existential message struck home,” Clinton told FOX News’ James Rosen in an exclusive and wide-ranging interview.

. . .

Though moved especially by what Rosen called the “world-weary, drug-fueled existentialism of their later work,” the Secretary of State says she has always approved of the British Invasion.

“Well, like so many Beatles fans, it depends both on mood and stage of life. I have to confess … that the hand-clapping mode was what I first was captured by. ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ was an anthem, as you might imagine.”

Clinton named “Hey Jude” as her favorite Beatles song, praising its Biblical tone and seriousness — but she might have trouble heeding some of its “existential” lessons.

Hey, I’m a Beatles fan too, but “hand clapping” doesn’t readily come to mind when I think of I Want to Hold Your Hand , screaming yes, hand clapping no. Hey Jude has a Biblical tone? Wasn’t it written for Julian Lennon?

Originally titled “Hey Jules,” This song was written by McCartney during Lennon’s divorce to help comfort his son, Julian Lennon.

FNC has video of this interview but I can’t find it posted yet. It’s a nice break from Hillary’s grovelling to China.

Her plea was a reminder of the shifting balance of power between the longtime Western superpower and the Asian giant that finances its consumer and government spending with $1.9 trillion in foreign currency reserves.

“We are in the same boat,” she said. “Thankfully, we are rowing in the same direction, toward landfall.”

In an interview with Yang Lin of Shanghai-based Dragon TV, Clinton said the Chinese understand that the United States “has to take some drastic measures” with the stimulus package to restore American spending, which in turn will help revive Chinese exports.

By continuing to buy U.S. Treasury bonds, “the Chinese are recognizing our interconnections,” she said. She said that the purchases were a “very smart decision” because the bonds are safe and stable.

During her presidential campaign, Clinton had argued that reliance on Chinese bond purchases was making the U.S. dangerously dependent. She said China’s position as America’s “banker” was eroding the United States’ leverage with Beijing.

Well, I’m reassured, aren’t you?

/assume the brace position for Obama’s “major economic speech”, the unveiling of his tax the rich/business budget this coming week, and Geithner’s threat to release details of his AWOL bank bailout plan, I’m sure the Markets will be pleasantly pleased as punch